Product development is assisted by computer based applications, including word processing and graphics tools, scheduling tools, and product data management tools, among others. The typical product development cycle begins with an idea for a product or an improvement to a product that addresses a need in the industry or provides a solution to a problem. From the product idea, alternative designs may be explored, and ultimately, a design is chosen, designed, and implemented. During the initial phases of the product development cycle, word processing, graphics, and scheduling tools are often used to capture information such as marketing analyses, projected development schedules, and descriptions and reasonings behind particular design choices. During the design phase, information related to the design, such as the design specifications and 3-D model data, are typically captured using a CAD tool. During production of the product, part-tracking information is typically captured using a Product Data Management (PDM) tool. During every phase of the product development cycle, issues and decisions are made.
Collaboration tools have been developed to assist the product development process and encourage better communication by allowing people to conduct meetings online from remote locations. These collaboration tools provide some means for allowing simultaneous viewing of the same data and at least one method for communication (e.g., graphical pointers, graphical markups, audible communication (e.g., internet telephone), chat programs that are based on text, etc.).
While it is clear that various computer-based tools assist in capturing information and tracking the progress of a product and assisting inter-peer/group/entity communication, the current state of the art could be improved. First, no collaboration tool currently exists for specifically capturing and tracking idea questions, answers, and decisions associated with all phases of the product development cycle. Exploration of ideas is often a situation where many questions and issues are presented, and resulting answers or solutions are presented, and often ultimately resulting in decisions. In order to successfully track such exploration, it is necessary to capture many only partially completed information structures, including questions raised, proposals for solutions, answers to the questions, decisions made, including the decisions to continue or abandon a path of exploration, and the rationale behind these decisions. In the prior art, no single tool exists for capturing and tracking such information. Furthermore, no collaboration tool is specifically tuned to the capture of product design information. Finally, even if some of the information is captured using one or more different tools, because the information is not integrated into one application or easily accessible except using the particular tool that captured the information, much of the information relating to the design choices and decision rationales, as well as the issues and proposals that were explored during the development of the product, is typically not effectively captured, and may even become lost as the development cycle of the product progresses.
Many reasons exist why it would be advantageous to have the ability to access the data created by one tool using different tools. In particular, the information captured using one tool may be useful to various people from various entities performing various roles. For example, certain information captured during the design of a product may be useful not only to the design engineers, but to the manufacturing and testing engineers, managers of the product generation process, service technicians, marketing and sales personnel, order processing personnel, web site designers and administrators, customers, and suppliers, to name a few.
Accordingly, a need exists for a way to capture, store, and track product design issues and decision information including questions posed and answers on which decisions are or are not based and the rationale behind the decisions. A need also exists for the ability to capture such information from within a collaboration session to allow for realtime development of ideas, issues, and solutions by multiple remote meeting participants. In addition, a need exists for capturing this information in a tool neutral form that allows any tool to access (and modify where appropriate) the captured information.